Greater New Orleans

A month of major education changes: An analysis

The news conference took place at a school that looked like a maze of wood decking and ramps connecting a series of portable buildings in eastern New Orleans, where boarded structures and weedy lots still say "Katrina was here."

Chris Granger, The Times-PicayuneState Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek, left, and outgoing Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas, right, step aside to let John White, center, walk through a doorway at Andrew H. Wilson Charter School at a news conference April 8, 2011.

Despite the bleak setting, the news was largely good. John White, new head of the state entity that has run most New Orleans schools since the storm -- and which has taken over a handful of foundering schools elsewhere in Louisiana -- announced standardized test scores that showed impressive improvement.

"The New Orleans system of schools works. Period. End of story," White declared. "And we cannot go back to a system that does not put children's needs first. These results should close the book on that question."

Not likely. White's mid-May news conference was one in a series of events in Louisiana education last month that make clear the book is still being written.

Pastorek was an early architect of the school accountability program that eventually led to the state takeover of failing schools. When he became state superintendent, he oversaw (with Vallas) the metamorphosis of New Orleans schools while laying the foundation for similar changes elsewhere.

Pastorek had barely announced his departure before it became clear Gov. Bobby Jindal wanted White as his interim successor. Jindal's strong push drew criticism that White has enough to do in his new post. And it led to an apparent stalemate on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which appoints the superintendent.

While that issue is worked out, there is the matter of a trial, five years in the making, in a class-action lawsuit filed by New Orleans school employees fired after Katrina.

State education officials and the Orleans Parish School Board are the defendants in a lawsuit over back pay and damages for what the employees say was wrongful termination. Thousands of employees would stand to collect if the courts rule in their favor. The trial began in late May. It is expected to last well into July, with more proceedings to determine the amount of damages possible after that if the employees win.

As the trial plays out in New Orleans, the annual legislative session enters its final weeks in Baton Rouge, where an $11 million cut, made in May by the House, to the budget for the Recovery School District had White and others up in arms.

Aside from the budget issue, legislators have been asked to deal with bills conflicting with the aims of supporters of the present system, including one that would require the state agency to return schools no longer deemed failing to the management of the local school district. Such bills haven't gotten very far, but they demonstrate why everyone with a stake in public schools -- those who like the state reforms and those who believe too much power is being taken away from local authorities -- will have an eye on the fall elections.

All legislative seats are up for grabs this year and eight of the 11 BESE seats (three slots are filled by governor's appointees) will be on the fall ballot.

Look for the new Coalition for Louisiana Public Education to be weighing in on the issues. Among members of the coalition, which was formed earlier this year, are representatives from the state school boards and principals associations, two major teacher unions and other teacher organizations. The group's head, Jack Loup of St. Tammany Parish, believes opponents of some of Pastorek's initiatives are often cast as opponents of reform. Not true, he says. Among other things, they are concerned about the loss of local control of schools and what he asserts is a transfer of public money to private entities -- the independent charter groups that, in many cases, the state has put in charge of schools.